Part 25

“This too,” he said, “we may assume.”

“Come then,” he asked, “is there any thing else belonging to us, than on the one hand body, and on the other soul?”

“Nothing else,” he replied.

“To which species, then, shall we say the body is more like, and more nearly allied?”

“It is clear to every one,” he said, “that it is to the visible.”

“But what of the soul? Is it visible or invisible?”

“It is not visible to men, Socrates,” he replied.

“But we speak of things which are visible or not so to the nature of men: or to some other nature, think you?”

“To that of men.”

“What then shall we say of the soul, that it is visible, or not visible?”

“Not visible.”

“Is it then invisible?”

“Yes.”

“The soul then is more like the invisible than the body, and the body, the visible?”

“It must needs be so, Socrates.”

65. “And did we not some time since say this too, that the soul, when it employs the body to examine any thing, either by means of the sight or hearing, or any other sense, (for to examine any thing by means of the body is to do so by the senses,) is then drawn by the body to things that never continue the same, and wanders and is confused, and reels as if intoxicated through coming into contact with things of this kind?”

“Certainly.”

“But when it examines any thing by itself, does it approach that which is pure, eternal, immortal, and unchangeable, and, as being allied to it, continue constantly with it, so long as it subsists by itself, and has the power, and does it cease from its wandering, and constantly continue the same with respect to those things, through coming into contact with things of this kind? and is this affection of the soul called wisdom?”

“You speak,” he said, “in every respect, well and truly, Socrates.”

“To which species of the two, then, both from what was before, and now said, does the soul appear to you to be more like and more nearly allied?”

66. “Every one, I think, would allow, Socrates,” he replied, “even the dullest person, from this method of reasoning that the soul is in every respect more like that which continues constantly the same, than that which does not so.”

“But what as to the body?”

“It is more like the other.”

“Consider it also thus, that, when soul and body are together, nature enjoins the latter to be subservient and obey, the former to rule and exercise dominion. And in this way, which of the two appears to you to be like the divine, and which the mortal? Does it not appear to you to be natural that the divine should rule and command, but the mortal obey and be subservient?”

“To me it does so.”

“Which then, does the soul resemble?”

“It is clear, Socrates, that the soul resembles the divine, but the body, the mortal.”

“Consider then, Cebes,” said he, “whether, from all that has been said, these conclusions follow, that the soul is most like that which is divine, immortal, intelligent, uniform, indissoluble, and which always continues in the same state, but that the body on the other hand is most like that which is human, mortal, unintelligent, multiform, dissoluble, and which never continues in the same state. Can we say any thing against this, my dear Cebes, to shew that it is not so?”